1 882.] Zodlogy. 407 



Zoological Notes. — Professor Felix Plateau gives directions for 

 the rapid preparation of large myological preparations, of which we 

 copy his abstract: I- Maceration in alum during dissection; 2. Wash 

 with pure water; 3. Tint with carmine; 4. Fix the;^ carmine with 

 alum; 5. Maceration in phenicized glycerine; 6. Suppression of 

 the excess of glycerine by compression between absorbent paper. 

 The article is published in full in the Proceedings of the French 



Association for the Advancement of Science, 1880. Professor 



B. G. Wilder has published in the Proceedings of the American 

 Philosophical Society the anatomy of the brain of the cat, accom- 

 panied by numerous figures. Professor Owen lately read a 



paper before the Linnean Society on the homology of the conario- 

 hypophysial tract, or the so-called pineal and pituitary glands. 

 He pl-opounds the view that it is the modified homologue of the 

 mouth and gullet of invertebrates; that the suboesophageal ganglia 

 and succeeding nervous cord constitute the centers whence are 

 derived and caudally continued the homologues of the verte- 

 brate myelon. Mr. W. A. Forbes exhibited at a late meet- 

 ing of the London Zoological Society horns of the prong- 

 horned antelope ( Antilocapra americanq) lately shed by the speci- 

 men living in the society's garden. This was, it is believed, the 

 first instance on record of the same individual having shed its 

 horns in captivity in two consecutive years. He also read a paper 

 on the existence of a gall bladder in barbets and toucans. From 

 the peculiar form of the gall bladder in these birds, as well as 

 other features of their myology which he describes, the rela- 

 tionship of these birds to the woodpeckers becomes still more 

 evident than previously stated by Nitzsch, Kessler, Garrod and 



others. The last number of the Memoirs of the Boston Society 



of Natural History contains descriptions, with excellent figures on 

 three plates, of new Hycroids from Chesapeake bay, by Professor 

 S. F. Clarke. A new genus ( Calyptospadix ceriilca, n. sp.), is de- 

 scribed. The most interesting of the six forms is Stylactis arge, 

 "which has the remarkable habit of dividing its hydranths by a 

 transverse partition, leaving the distal half free, which latter, with 

 its two or three hydrorhizal processes that are developed before 

 the division takes place, floats away free, being carried about 

 by currents; finally it settles down, becomes attached, and 

 by growth and budding gives rise to a new colony. It is 

 another method in which the Hydroids are already so rich, by 

 virtue of which they increase their numbers and their geographi- 

 cal distribution." The Peabody Academy of Sciences has 



resumed the issue of its Memoirs. Vol. i, No. 5. is devoted to 

 Contributions to the Anatomy of Holothurians, by Mr. J. S. 

 Kingsley; and No. 6 to Mr. J. W. Fewkes' development of the 

 pluteus of Arbacia, which differs in certam details from that of 

 Pxhinocidaris as worked out by J. Muller. At a recent meet- 

 ing of the Linnean Society of London, Professor Cobbold exhib- 



